


Objects in the Rearview Mirror

by FeatherQuill



Category: The Hobbit RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Humor, Disabled Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 03:30:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6036190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeatherQuill/pseuds/FeatherQuill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They  meet when they are young</p>
            </blockquote>





	Objects in the Rearview Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this is something new and something that I just wrote down because it refused to leave my mind. Anyways, I do hope that people enjoy it none the less :) Feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think <3

They meet when they are young, nothing but wild eyed children in a world that is new and full of new experiences. Sixteen is a nice age, they both think later – now in both nearing their forties and trying their best not to sound like their parents did – even if they catch themselves at it sometimes and whenever it happens, Richard just looks at Lee like he has bitten into a particular bitter grape but doesn´t comment on it much more and Lee just chortles. 

He has always done that, an easy smile on his face, eyes nearly full with tears from the mirth of it all once Richard had managed to fall drunken into a hedge and made a comment about gardening. Yeah, he still loves those times and those shared memories even if there is a painful tugging in his chest, just beneath his ribcage, where he assumes his heart is located – aw, crap , he has always sucked at biology. Well, he thinks with a twitch of his lips – not _all_ of those things, but the ones that would have made him help become a doctor, like his parents had hoped and he had tried but given up because , well -it just wasn´t for him but how do you explain such thing to your parents who look at you like you just told them that you are going to join a convent for some reason or the other. 

At twenty he just didn´t have the nerve but the look his father gave him was one he had known all his life and he had known then that their anger had found a source not even near him in the present moment, but he knew. 

Sixteen, he is sixteen when then they meet and he doesn´t care that all it takes for them to fall in love at breakneck speed and later into a bed in a room of someone at the same party Richard dragged him to on his first visit to Europe that is laden with hopes that he will look at universities and all that the world holds for him – oh he does find it, but he doesn´t know just then and the parting at the airport is so bittersweet that he even finds his eyes filling even decades later, a slight breeze in his hair with the few gray streaks here and there. A warm hand rests on his shoulder and he would startle if he wouldn´t know who it belongs to.

“Hey.”

A quiet voice says, fond and a little prying but he knows that Richard would never prod unless he is really worried – and sometimes he is. When the days are longer and the nights colder, when dark thoughts are allowed into both their heads despite them trying to shut them out like the occasional rainstorm raging outside in the bleak of winter. 

“Hey.”

He says just as quiet and images of them running at a beach and making cartwheels while trying not to fall over each others feet. Yes, that summer had been the second and he had done so much whining to go back to Europe and his lies had been innocent to his own eye. Maybe that was it in the end, he thinks on those dreadful darker days. Richards sees it in the clenching of his fist at his side and makes a sound that is between a sob and a shout but no words leave his throat and he just squeezes down hard enough to leave a bruise on a freckled shoulder to remind the other man that things are just like they are and cannot be changed, no matter how much a person sometimes wants it to. 

“Dinner is almost ready.”

Richard says instead and stares out to the sea, his eyes following endless waves with heat creeping up on his face when he thinks back on the very first time they were here and how it had ended with very little clothes and sand in places it should never end up in, but had they cared? He thinks not. 

“Pervert.”

Lee says fondly, catching the slight flush on Richards face and Richard makes that face again like he has bitten into something really sour and can´t just shake it off. 

“Since when is dinner perverted?”

He tries in an last futile attempt but Lee just laughs until tears form in his eyes and Richard whacks him over the back of the head playfully. 

“Writers.”

He mutters so full of love that Lee just grabs his hand and squeezes it a little to hard, like he had done in that winter. Richard had never felt more pain in his life like in that godforsaken winter and had someone told him that when they had first met, that there would be someone in his life that would be able to tear his heart out because that person was crying without sounds – well he would have asked them if they were insane. 

He too likes the memories of a wasted youth far more because it is full of colors and hopes but he knows that those times are past now and that they are forever imprinted in their minds and souls and also there are neatly stacked boxes in the hallway closet with pictures of them. Far away, because they are so many – he likes to say but not out loud, because he knows Lee just would look at him and know there would be a lie on his face and he had sworn that he would never lie to Lee. Not about certain things. 

Oh they did lie to each other sometimes, like when they had yelled at each other that they hated what the other was and that Lee should go back to the States and not waste his life but then Richard had looked at his best friend back home and Graham had just punched him in the face and shipped him off to get the _bloody mess_ back in order. He had arrived just the day Lee had graduated from Highschool and Lee had looked at him and started to cry when Richard just offered his hand in a room full of gobsmacked students at his prom.  
That had been before Lee had decided that he didn´t want to be a surgeon after all and naturally his parents had blamed his life choices on Richard appearing like something out of a fairy tale but that hadn´t been the reason. 

Still, it was never the same after that and even if he was a well known writer now and Richard had a teaching position at the local Collage it would never be again. He could care less, he always says but sometimes Richard doubts, like he doubts too. 

Lee doubts a lot and about a lot of different things like , is this new novel he is working on really good or _Is the shirt I am wearing not clashing with my pants_ and yet he knows. He knows that his novels sell well enough and that nobody really cares for the shirt anyway. That is mostly the point where it gets bitter, because they look at the _chair_

Not that he remembers a lot of the accident himself and he hates that. Hates that he cannot just remember who just drove over that red light and how he was catapulted through the air. If it was his fault after all, maybe the result of all the little lies he has told over the years and that he has deceived the people he should have been honest to. His logical sense tells him that it is bullshit, but his heart sure does say other things. 

The only thing he surely remembers about that night is the pounding footsteps of Richard on the pavement in front of their first shared flat, like thunder in his ears and the frantic yelling. Eventually he remembers more people and being in a hospital. Not once had Richard left his side and he had gotten into a fight with his father, yelling until the nurses threatened to throw them both out but Lee had just stretched out his arms and his father had never said a word about it again to either of them although they both knew who the man blamed.  
Lee himself had a better standing with Richards parents , which was ironic enough because he had managed to piss into Richards mother priced roses on his first visit because they had been – well – near and his bladder had been full after a night on the town spent with Richard. She had just given him that look, eying him up and down before telling him that there would be other ways to water flowers and asking very politely if it was an American thing. Richard had nearly torn the stitches from his Appendix operation when Lee told him. 

That seems all long ago now, they have moved on, adjusted to a life of their own. Richard asks him something again, not about dinner but about his novel.

“What?”

Lee mutters, all caught up in memories, dreams and nightmares, hands clasped over his stomach.

“Could you just listen for once?”

Richards grouses and Lee chuckles again, mood lightening a bit. 

“Forgive me.”

He says, batting his eyelashes and Richard curses, asking again.

“That new novel of yours, what is it about?”

Lee bites his bottom lip, not sure if he really should tell Richard that, which is ridiculous, because they are married for nearly sixteen years now. Still, he has to clear his throat. 

“Well, it is about two boys. They meet in summer,when they are young.”

It is like ripping off a band aid Lee concludes, staring out to the sea again and fiddling with the blanked covering his legs. Richard doesn´t say anything for a while. 

“Oh. And do they get a happy end?”

Richard asks after a while, grip white knuckled on the bars of the wheelchair. Lee just twists his head around as much as he can, trying to smile. 

“Happy End, what does that even mean?”

He asks instead of answering but before Richard can start to worry or they can start a fight Lee pulls him down for a kiss that is as much of an Happy End as they both can manage to handle. Richard takes it as a quiet _yes_ none the less before he wheels Lee into the dining room where both their parents are already waiting. Happy Ends Richard decides then, everybody has to find for themselves.


End file.
